My House Beautiful

It’s often said that a couple that plays together, stays together. In the case of Brian and Laurie Wolfson, they really stay together, working as principals of Wolfson Custom Homes in Woodbury. Brian is the founder and president; Laurie works with him as lead design consultant for the firm. Between the two, they’ve spent the last 20 years developing their design skills in residential and commercial construction projects. So when it was time to build an oasis in the backyard of their Haddonfield home, nothing less than the best would do.

Their 450-square-foot Bartlett model pool with natural bluestone coping was built by Swim-Mor Pools & Spas, a 40-year-old family-owned business with locations in Mt. Ephraim, Northfield and Englishtown. The pool features a raised spa that seats six to eight, with stone facing on the outside. On the backside of the pool, which was completed from start to finish in about eight weeks, there is a raised wall with a sheer-descent water feature. Computer controls manage all of the equipment from inside the house, meaning that as soon as the Wolfsons walk in from a hard day at work, they can fire up the spa without even going outside.

“[Swim-mor’s] Clark Binitti worked closely with us, and he recommended doing a hot tub, which I am thrilled with,” says Laurie Wolfson. “We have an 11-year-old daughter, and we have some of our best family talk time sitting in the hot tub in the evening, just the three of us. We enjoy it for therapeutic reasons and just the restfulness of it.” When she’s not helping clients select their finishes for roofing and siding and bathroom tile, Wolfson paints portraits. That artist’s creativity is evident in her choice of color palette, and the fact that it was inspired by her love of blue-and-white china. Even outdoors, Wolfson found no reason not to use something very traditional in a non-traditional manner. She’s placed old plates in random patterns in the garden, tilted large blue-and-white china bowls against her fence with flowers coming out of them, and hidden blue-and-white blown-glass orbs beneath small bushes. “When you really look hard, you see little touches of blue and white,” says Wolfson, “And when you look down at the ground, you see little surprises.”

One surprise is how Wolfson often shops for her patio pieces and accessories: by auction. That’s how she obtained her 1920s wrought-iron patio furniture. Since the pieces are heavy, they stay outside year-round, so she had them upholstered in a durable neutral fabric that could withstand exposure to the elements. When summer comes, Wolfson pulls out two tried-and-true designer’s secrets. The first is using neutral backgrounds whose accessories pop with color. The second tip is to pair expensive pieces with inexpensive items for a look that enhances both. For example, Wolfson’s custom-upholstered patio furniture is accented with turquoise, lime green and blue-and-white pillows from stores like Home Goods and Home Depot.

In staying true to her colors, though, Wolfson’s design plans hit a snag when it came time to lay the pool’s patio. “We wanted to use real bluestone, but found it too expensive,” she says. “Then Arcon [Specialty Concrete, the Wolfson’s patio contractor] came up with the great solution of doing stamped concrete. [Arcon’s owner] Bart Rockett then hand-colored the concrete to the coloration that I wanted to achieve. He’s an artist as far as concrete is concerned, so I really appreciated what he did.”

But all those beautiful blues aside, a space just isn’t complete without the right people there to enjoy it. “Our daughter is a real swimmer, so she uses the pool all the time,” says Wolfson. “We love that the kids in the neighborhood end up in our yard. It’s really nice.”

Published (and copyrighted) in Suburban Home and Garden, June 2006.

Author: Stephanie Arasim Portnoy

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